Enrichment and Characterisation of a Mixed-Source Ethanologenic Community Degrading the Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste Under Minimal Environmental Control

Conclusion It was demonstrated that although initial pH can be considered a key environmental factor for ethanol production from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, the inoculum selection also has a significant effect in the formation of this soluble end-product, as the interaction of both factors was shown to drive a divergence in the ethanologenic activity of rumen and sludge inocula, where maximal EtOH production was achieved at an initial neutral pH or at an initial acidic pH, respectively. The mixed-source community proved to be enriched from the combination of these inocula and produced EtOH under both initial pH conditions, likely due to its high functional redundancy. At the moment of writing, this work is the first determining whether the initial ethanologenic mixed-source community was indeed comprised of members belonging to the original inocula sources. This information is relevant when different inocula are combined for MCF studies, as it experimentally demonstrates the benefits of diversity and function assembled from different sources. Besides, since the combination of inocula could not be even necessary, this information could help to simplify batch processes inoculation. Ethics Statement The Ethical review of this study was conducted by the Policy & Information Team, Newcastle University. This “low risk” study did not involve animal subjects, human subjects/data nor clinical trials. Author Contributions PC-B conceived and ...
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research